“Ideal Shape” And Visceral (Belly) Fat: The Brutal, Unhealthy Truth

LOSE THE VISCERAL (BELLY) FAT…THIS IS NOT A CHOICE…VISCERAL FAT “INACTIVATES” INSULIN PRODUCTION IN THE BODY WHICH PREVENTS FUEL FROM ENTERING MUSCLES AND IT THEN TURNS INTO…YOU GOT IT…MORE BELLY FAT…READ EXCERPTS BELOW…

“…The size of your waist says a lot about your general health, Mason City family physician Dr. James Coddington said.”

“The problem with a big waist is that the fat isn’t just under your skin,” he said. “It surrounds the muscle. It can enter the liver, it can enter into the heart muscle.”

“… men whose waists are 40 inches or more increase significantly their risk of vascular disease, Coddington said.

Abdominal fat, called visceral fat, inactivates the insulin your body produces, Coddington said. Insulin is essential for body muscles to take in fuel to create energy.

“When you eat more than you can burn, you start to build up visceral fat,” Coddington said. “Because insulin can’t get into the muscle, the fuel goes to visceral fat.”

The fat acts like a sponge to soak up insulin. The muscle cells start to starve, Coddington said.

An unfortunate consequence is that the individual becomes “too tired to exercise and too hungry to eat less,” Coddington said.

Cravings develop for carbohydrate foods such as sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes and rice. But eating them won’t help.

“The fuel bounces off the muscle cells and creates more fat,” Coddington said.

This condition is called metabolic syndrome, or insulin resistance. Metabolic syndrome is extremely common and has surpassed smoking as the number one risk factor for heart disease and stroke in the nation, Coddington said.

The answer is weight loss through a combination of exercise — such as walking 30 minutes a day — and proper nutrition.

“Exercise helps your insulin work better, makes the brain work better and helps to resist plaque formation in your arteries. But to lose weight, you have to include a nutritional plan,” Coddington said.

By reducing 500 calories a day from the diet, an adult will lose a pound a week, he said.

An article in The New York Times, May 13, 2008, quoted a finding by researchers at Harvard Medical School that healthy-weight men and women who were thick around the middle face twice the risk of premature death from heart disease of cancer.